On September 20th, the NGC Group hosted the 2019 China Wind Energy Supply Chain Forum, “In Wind, We Win Together”, which was held in the city of Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The event attracted more than 100 industry experts and participants from wind turbine manufacturers, main parts suppliers, and wind energy developers.

At present, China’s wind power industry is entering a new stage of development in which bidding policies are being comprehensively implemented and an era of price parity is rapidly approaching. As such, the industry faces questions of how to maintain high-quality industrial development in the face of new opportunities and challenges, and the guests attending this forum conducted deep discussions and shared their insights on these topics.

Industrial Development Requires Efficient Coordination Across the Whole Industrial Chain

In a speech given by NGC Group chairman and general manager Mr. Hu Yueming, he noted that China has now become the world's largest manufacturer of wind turbine components and supply chain node, and the holistic and systematic integration of the wind power industry chain have been recognized around the world. The China Wind Energy Supply Chain Forum has been promoted by NGC to create a platform where Chinese wind power industry participants can actively explore and discuss topics of interest. For the past five years, this forum has conducted discussions on topics including wind power industry innovation, quality, services, and many more. This forum also conducted extensive exchanges about the establishment of a rational, healthy, and orderly wind energy equipment supply chain, and these exchange have increased the efficiency and mutual benefit to all parties in the wind energy supply chain.

Mr. He Jianhua, chairman and general manager of Dongfang Electric Wind Power Co., Ltd., pointed out that the high-speed development of China’s wind energy depends on collaboration across the whole industry. Questions such as how to provide customers with the best overall energy efficiency, how to embody the values of the whole industry, and how to promote progress in the industry have long been topics of research for wind power industry participants. He stated that Dongfang Electric Wind Power stands ready to work together with other industry participants in establishing and improving a rational, healthy, and orderly supply chain system, as well as upgrading quality, technologies, and brands to provide a new and greater strength for the sustainable development of China’s wind power industry.

Mr. Shen Yanjie, chairman and general manager of China Guodian Corporation United Power Technology Co., Ltd., said that electricity price parity is changing the pattern of electricity supply at an unprecedented rate in terms of both breadth and depth. The most pressing need of this new era of wind power is for coordinated development. Only in this way can the industry chain progress together. He believed that if wind power enterprises want to become unified in both knowledge and action, they must adhere to the development concept of putting product performance, quality, and services first, as well as promote synergistic innovation, deepen practical cooperation, mitigate shortcomings in the industry chain, and establish new business relationships characterized by win-win development.

Mr. Chen Hongjie, operations director of the Shanghai Electric Wind Power Group, also expressed his views on the state of the industry. He believed that onshore wind power enterprises will face a new environment after 2020, and that there will be a new focus on large-scale power station construction and distributed wind power development. However, offshore wind power is likely to face continuous growth in the future, but faces a degree of uncertainty depending on policy, and the limit of offshore wind farm size will depend on supply chain capacity and load capacity. In his analysis, high-speed delivery will become the foremost priority of the wind power industry, while cutting whole life-cycle costs will become a constant topic of discussion, and risk aversion in supply chain partnerships will become an issue that must be faced in the strategies of wind power companies.

Technological Progress Means “Quality” Will Win the Future

Wind energy gearboxes are one of the key core components of wind turbines, so product reliability has long been a major concern. Mr. Gu Xiaobin, NGC’s COO and general manager of their Wind Energy Division, shared NGC’s efforts to maintain and improve quality control with the guests attending the event.

He stressed that modern Chinese wind power enterprises must effectively manage quality, and should focus on technological progress and basic problem solving, as most quality problems are caused by defects in technologies or manufacturing processes. Therefore, NGC has approached the issue of quality by building up smart information systems in the fields of R&D, material thermoanalysis, procurement, manufacturing, testing, and services, and has continuously accelerated technological progress in order to promote constant improvement of quality.

Mr. Liu Zhen, quality director of the NGC Group’s quality department, gave a detailed introduction of NGC’s quality improvement journey, and approached the issue from three aspects: quality control, development direction, and areas of change and continuity. Over 50 years of development, NGC has used the “twin engines” of self-improvement and customer-orientation to ¬fulfill the company’s quality policy of “Quality First, Customer First; Providing High-Quality Services on the Basis of Trust”, and has gradually established and formed a unique and high-performing “NGCQS” quality management system, and the company’s quality management system has begun to mature. In the future, NGC will take the improvement of technical quality standards as one of its main focus area, and will integrate big data analysis applications in the design, procurement, manufacture, and application stages in order to create quality improvement pathways that are both systematic and reliable.

Witnessing 50 years of NGC’s Success

This year is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and coincides with NGC’s 50th anniversary. In their speeches, Mr. Hu Yueming, NGC Group’s chairman and general manager, and Mr. Gu Xiaobin, NGC Group’ chief operating officer and general manager of the Wind Energy Division, both looked back on NGC’s 50 years of development and struggle. All of the guests in attendance then watched the Driving China documentary on NGC, which was filmed by CCTV’s “Quality” column, and the showing of the film elicited a strong response.

Mr. Hu Yueming, chairman and general manager of the NGC Group, soulfully said that several generations of NGC staffs had worked bitterly from the company founding through periods of reform and innovation, and had turned a tiny, unknown factory into a major supplier of transmission equipment in the wind power industry. Especially in the 40 years since the Reform and Opening-up, the workers of NGC have remained true to the founders’ original aspirations and kept their mission in mind as they made one brilliant achievement after another. These accomplishments are inseparable from the benefits provided by China’s reformation and opening, the development environment of wind power, generous support from governments at all levels, the constant support and trust provided by suppliers and users, and steady care and assistance provided by friends from all walks of life. For all of these, NGC is and will remain forever grateful.

He also called for all employees of NGC to serve as links between past and future, to carry forward the company’s mission, and forge ahead into the future. All of the company’s staff should free their thinking, advance with the times, continue the positive traditions of the past, and embody the spirit of the new era to rebuild NGC for a new age and ensure the company will stand strong to the end of the new century.

This forum also invited Eize de Vries, technology and market trend consultant of Windpower Monthly and Wind IQ, to deliver the event’s keynote speech, which was entitled The Constantly Increasing Challenge of Offshore Wind Power. Sources say that Eize de Vries has served as the judge of Windpower Monthly’s annual evaluation of the best products in the wind power industry.